Seals
by Autumn Thief
Summary: Liz and Patty make a mess, but Kid seems too distracted to notice. The siblings try to find what's up. Turns out, they learn something's different about those skull rings he wears.


Some things to say before the fic… 1. There are so many translations out there (fan and official)…for this text, Shinigami-sama=Lord Death=the Reaper, etc; likewise with other terms. 2. This isn't a Kidxanyone.

Summary: An afternoon of Liz and Patty just playing around really dishevels a room. Kid comes back to find the mess, but for some reason he's not too concerned. The siblings try to find out what's bothering the young shinigami. Turns out, those skull rings aren't just for show…

TLTLTTLT

It was another afternoon in the manor, and Liz and Patty were in the board room. The older sister lounged on the couch like she never experienced the touch of expensive leather before, reading a book. The younger sister was playing with the dart board, using herself as the weapon to shoot the target. She transformed mid air and made herself fire, a spectacular shift from human to weapon. It was an exercise to train her reflexes. In the one split second she was an unhandled weapon rotating around in the air she fired at the target.

"Bulls-eye!" she exclaimed, transforming back into her human form. Right though the battered dart board was an open hole; a perfect hit.

Liz looked up from from the couch. "Good job, Sis," she said, then closed her novel. "You know that you're going to have to repair the wall behind it, now. And all the other things you accidently hit."

Patti looked around the room. Tables, chairs, china, portraits, couches, and walls all had soul-bullet holes. She shrugged and giggled. "Kid'll just clean it up," she winked.

Liz smirked. "You're so mean," she laughed. "Here's another one. Think fast, Patti!" Then, she threw her book up into the air.

Patti leaped up and transformed. The body was now the gun, but her mind was now focused on one thing: to shoot the book. She pretended flexing her muscles as if she were in human form. The triggered pulled; she fired.

The binding ripped from the force and shredded pages scattered all over the room. Patty reverted to human once again, cheering, "Yay! More mess!"

Liz leapt up from the couch and high-fived her sister, saying, "Sweet."

They stood there, admiring the untidiness they instilled upon the room. It was a nice makeover from the usual, immaculate spotlessness that it was.

"What are you doing?"

Both Liz and Patti turned to the source of the voice at the same time. Liz grit her teeth—well, the mess _seemed_ like a good idea. Patti's grin only widened.

"Kid!!" Patti sprang from her spot beside Liz, leaping to her Meister's side. "Don't you like the changes we made?"

Liz wanted to slap herself on the forehead. Of course Patti knew that it irked Kid. Why was she so insistent on being annoying? Sometimes her ditsy personality was cute, but Kid didn't seem in the mood to tolerate anything at the moment.

Indeed, the young shinigami appeared more grim than usual. His usual noble posture seemed a bit slumped, and his normally neutral face appeared bothered. Liz walked up to him, saying, "Heya Kid. What's up?"

Kid looked from Patti to Liz and then to the rest of the room. His cold yellow eyes picked up all the dishevel in the area—from the broken porcelain to the shattered chandeliers, from the torn rug to the ruined pool tabl. His gaze lingered at the concentrated bullet holes around the dart board, as if putting a picture together of what happened. He looked at Patti and said, "Good job."

Liz's mouth dropped. Patti cheered, raising her hands up into the air in fists. Kid then proceeded to a bookshelf on one of the walls. It didn't hold his entire collection, but it harbored many of the ones he was currently reading or re-reading.

Liz found this opportunity to grab the joyous Patti. She pulled her little sister close and said, "Hey, um, Patti, don't you think he's acting a bit weird?"

"I thought you said he always acted weird."

"But when the weird is the standard, the normal is the weird," Liz explained.

"Oh…," Patti's eyes narrow a bit as she surveyed the shinigami's form browsing the shelves. She whispered, "Yeah, kinda. I mean…he didn't say anything about the room."

Liz nodded, "Let's go and see what's up."

The two weapons creeped upon him, taking slow small steps in the path. As they got closer, they saw Kid open a book, look at its destroyed contents, and then place it back onto the shelf. He then picked another book, saw a giant hole in its spine, and then replaced it as well. Patti and Liz tapped him on either shoulder at the same time. It was something they designed to do when they needed his attention and not trigger his OCD-ness.

"What do you want?" he said, replacing another destroyed book on the shelf.

Patti giggled, "Wattaya reading?"

Kid gave one glance at her and then picked up a torn book. He dangled it in front of the younger blonde and said, "How did you manage to shoot every single book?" His voice carried a tinge of annoyance.

"Uhh…" Patti stilled under his gaze.

Liz interjected, "Yeah…um… target practice."

Kid glanced up the older sibling, "Why?"

She shifted her weight, placing a hand on one of her hips, "Because there was nothing else to shoot at. Duh."

Kid frowned, looking at the book. "And you just placed them back on the shelves in their decimated manner?"

"Yeah, we thought you might want the titles of the collection we ruined," Patti added, "So that you could buy them again."

"Not helping," Liz whispered to Patti.

"So, you destroyed this room and books just for practice?"

"Hey, hey. You're the one who hasn't been taking missions lately. We didn't want to dim our skills," Liz said.

Patti added, "If you think about that way, it was actually a _good _thing that we destr—_practiced_."

"So you're helping the humans by destroying books," Kid repeated.

"Yeah."

"Yep!"

A pause.

"Get out of my sight."

"What?"

"H-huh?"

"Leave," he said calmly, but it was a façade; his fists were clenched. "Now."

Liz and Patti looked at one another. Patti furrowed her eyebrows, but still held the smile on her face, "I don't understand."

That seemed to make something in Kid tick. His gaze locked on hers, and she took a step back. "Of course you wouldn't. If you read books instead of destroying them—maybe then you'd at least understand was two plus two equals."

"H-hey…" Patti stuttered.

"Kid! Apologize to Patti," Liz hated playing the bossy one, but he was insulting her sister. Meister or not, he wasn't going to get away with that.

The young shinigami looked up at Liz with a grimacing expression. He appeared as if he were about to say something, but instead simply picked another book off the shelf. Liz snatched the book out of his hand, earning her another icy glare from the shinigami. "Apologize. You don't scare me," she said defiantly.

"Liz is soooo cool!" Patti praised, but then fell silent. The room became tense as hydrogen balloon next to a candle.

Of course, it was a total lie that Liz wasn't scared. Working with a reaper, any normal being would be chilled. Even sweet Patti had once expressed her feelings of discomfort around the shinigami. Being "lowlifes" from the streets, how could they refuse being weapons for a god of death?

In truth whenever they were around him, there was a barely-there feeling of the fight-or-flight instinct. Only now it was more pronounced. She tried to mask her alarm.

Kid smirked at her Liz's comment. "Oh really?" he instantly took the book from her hand again. "Your hand is shaking. And I'm going to read."

"But that book is destroyed," Patti commented.

"We can learn from ruins."

Liz raised an eyebrow; now, the panic feeling had almost disappeared. Kid appeared to be more solemn than angry. It was strange, watching him walk a tattered leather couch and sit down. He opened the book; some scraps of pages fell to the ground.

Liz and Patti looked at each other. Instantly, they knew they had screwed up big time. The two started to clean up the remnants of their fun.

"Um, what's wrong with you today?" Liz asked quietly after a while. "You didn't scold us for messing up the room or destroying these books."

"Yeah, you might as well tell us," Patti said, "Or you'll be sulking for the rest of the night."

Kid turned a page, finishing the literature. Shutting it, he said slowly, "Do you remember that mission in which we all emerged victorious but very much scathed?"

"Yeah, even we weapons got bruises!" Patti flexed her arms, revealing black and blue marks.

"Not something to be happy about," Liz muttered to her sister. "But that was a toughie—not meant for the whole group's level—even combined."

"My Lord Father did not like it," Kid continued. He looked at the scratched cover of the book. "He recently called upon me."

Liz perked up at this, "Oh, uh, what did he say?"

Kid stood up, sighing, "Not much, really. I've be mulling over it for quite a while."

"Yeah, I guess you really have to think in depth about what he says," Patti shrugged.

Kid walked back from the couch to the shelves saying, "With the advancement of Meisters' levels with training, their powers are allowed to expand and develop."He hesitated before placing the book back in its correct spot, "That may apply to me, but only to a certain extent."

"What do you mean?" Liz asked.

"My abilities can grow, for sure," Kid said. "But first they must to be allowed to do so." He looked from Liz to Pattie and said, "I am allowed to discharge a seal."

The room was silent for a moment.

"A…seal? I _love _seals! They sound like puppies," exclaimed Patti, her eye sparkling. "Arf! Arf!"

Liz sighed at her sister's cuteness. Liz said, "Not the animal Seals."

Patti gave a confused look at her sister, "Navy Seals?"

"No--A precaution. A restriction," Kid explained. He held up his hands. "These two rings are some seals on my power."

Patti came closer to Kid, observing his skull rings. "No _kid_ding, Kid," she giggled. "I always thought that you were just fashionable."

Liz walked over and stood by her sister, "So, what's the problem here?"

"I can only remove one," he stated, and then fell silent.

"Ohhhh…yep. That'll do it," Patti laughed after a moment. Both of the sisters knew his problem far too well.

Kid looked at the two grey skull rings. "Actually, I got the permission from him _before _that mission. I thought that it didn't matter."

"Yeah, I hear parents usually know best—wait a minute," Liz frowned. "Did you say _before_? That's means…that whole fiasco could have gone much more smoothly!" She looked at Patti's arms. Those bruises would last for quite some time. She spat, "My sister could have been saved of these marks. Not to mention everyone else's thrashing."

"You're probably right," Kid said. "But seeing as that we all made it out alive, I think that it doesn't matter after all. I couldn't just remove _one _ring, so I might as well wait it out."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Patti nodded in agreement.

"Patti!" Liz scolded, but gave up. She turned back to the shinigami, saying, "Why not remove two?"

Kid gave her a quizzical look, "I'm only _allowed_ to remove one ring."

"Screw it—if it's for the good of our friends, it shouldn't matter," Liz said.

"Screw the rules!" Patti chimed, punching the air. Then she added, "Wouldn't it make His Reaperness proud that you removed _two _rings instead of one?"

"With each restriction removed, much untamed energy is released. Under normal circumstances, the seal prevents me from furthering my abilities—it only allows my power to grow to a certain level," Kid explained. "I do not know if I can control two releases."

"It'll just make your father all the more proud," Liz suggested. "If you remove two rings—permitted that this unleashed power is controlled—you can impress him, be the best at assignments, and still be balanced. "

"Oh, oh!" Patti raised her hand and said, "So that means, if you remove one ring, you can still impress Master Shinigami, be good at assignments, and you won't have to worry about power-issures. Only…with this one you'd be the 'a' word." 'A' word meaning, of course, asymmetrical.

Kid looked from Liz to Patti and said seriously, "No, I think I'll just wait until actually permits me to remove both."

There was another silence in the room.

"Is this just about the symmetry?" Liz asked in disbelief.

Kid did not respond.

"I see it now. You really don't give a damn about the lives of your friends," Liz crossed her arms. Oh yes, _that _got his attention.

"L-liz!" Patty stammered in surprised. She covered her small mouth in shock, standing a bit off to the side. The atmosphere of the room had tensed once again.

Kid had reacted at this comment, finally alleviating his eyes from his two skull rings. Still, he did not turn to face Liz.

Liz took his silence as him granting the chance for her to explain—a redeeming, patient trait that he probably developed form listening to Patty and his Lord Father's uncanny speeches. "If you did actually care, then—one— you would have _no problem _about removing just _one_ of the rings to satisfy both His Reaperness AND your wanting to be less restricted; or—two—you would remove both rings to defy Him for the sake of being helpful and not a completely _crazy._"

Despite her statement having the potential to be considered blasphemous, Liz half expected her younger sibling to start giggling a the last "crazy" comment. To Liz's surprise, nothing happened. Patty simply stood there, not appeared to take any sides.

Kid's slowly turned. The light of the room seemed to dim, and the temperature dropped. He was angry, for sure. His yellow, lusterless eyes locked with hers in a piercing stare—the color of dead and withered dandelions. She could feel her heart skip a beat within her chest.

But that wouldn't stop Liz. She was on a role, "Maybe His Reaperness was right—after all, you're still a child. How can anyone expect you to be making—quite literally—life and death decisions? Personally, I wouldn't want a full-fledged _teenage_ nerotic grim reaper on the streets with uncanny abilities either."

He stood there for a moment, his expression still between disapproving and its usual stoic look: a small frown and glaring eyes. Only for partnering with him for so long could she tell he was genuinely angry. They said boys adopted mannerisms from their fathers; perhaps the Lord Reaper held this look too under the mask.

"Don't even get me started on your _problems_," was her final comment.

Kid finally stepped in, almost whispering, "That's enough." His voice held a soft rumble in the statement, like it was being altering by the fluctuations of his wavelength. Liz did not realize until later, but she had stepped back instinctively. Whatever it was the threatening pressure was, it soon dissipated. Kid broke eye contact, and stepped towards the doorway to leave.

Now that was something. Being a higher rank socially and by default, Patty and Liz were the one supposed to leave the room. Rarely when he wanted some alone time did he himself step out. At this point Liz felt a jab to her heart—they had hurt him. The black door shut, and the sisters were left alone.

Well, that was just great. Now she was the bitchy one off the group. She glanced at Patty. The petit blonde shrugged her shoulders hesitantly. She suggested quietly, "Maybe you should say sorry."

"Why would I be sorry? He was teasing you," Liz spat. "Family before friends. It's you and me against the world, right, Patty?"

The younger girl looked uncertain for a moment, biting her lip. She said, "You don't think Kid as part of the family?" Her eyes seemed to quiver. They were slightly moist, but she quickly looked at the floor again.

Liz was taken aback, "I, uh…umm." Only one word could surmise what she was feeling. She clenched her fists, "_Idiot_."

At this, Patty gave a soft giggle.

"Patty, I'll be right back."

"With Kid?"

"Yep."

"Let me clean up a bit more; then, I'll come."

Might as well get it over with before the sun completely set. Liz sprinted out of the room, holding on to her cowboy hat. Her heavy heals clicked on the floors as she opened the doors to the spacious deck facing the desert. Walking down a quarter mile of outdoor corridors, one left turn, one right, another left, another right and she came upon an open, circular patio.

It was probably the single most _odd _place in the entire mansion. Liz and Patty had installed it as a "therapy". For even though the layout was the ultimate radical symmetric shape the surroundings were irregular and amorphous. The bushes, trees, and groves were all cut purposely not to be symmetrical.

In all of its oddness, however, it was still a very beautiful and unique garden. In the twilight, it was an afterglow of relaxed campaign , fire, and brown sugar. Though Kid had greatly protested its setting up, the Thompson sisters noticed how he gradually came to stroll though the place. In the back of her mind, he probably just made a habit of exactly how he would be able to "correct" the place.

Regardless, it was in this particular location that she encountered Death the Kid. He probably already knew she was there but she called to him, "Hey, Kid!"

"What?" it had come out in a most irritated way. He found the most irregular looking flower and proceeded to glare intensely at its form.

Now she felt dumb. If he was going to give her that attitude—wait, she calmed herself. Looking at Kid's profile, she finally asked, "Will you be _eating_ that flower?"

The Kid moved his focus from the petals to Liz. She rubbed the back of her head and gave a large, silly smile. Kid cast his gaze on the flower again. A moment in silence passed as the golden shad darkened, the walls of the buildings casing deep shadows in the yard.

Liz couldn't take it anymore. Laughing, she approached her Meister. She regained her composure and hit him with one of her "Liz-tastic-back-pats," as Patty had so described.

Finally, she said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things."

Kid paused before responding, "You're forgiven."

Liz waited.

"And I am sorry as well," he admitted.

At this point, Patty jumped in, nearly startling Liz right out of her boots. "We forgive you too!" she sang happily. "By the way, _are _you going to eat that?"

Kid shook his head softly. "No," he plucked the bloom from the brush and offered it to her, "Knock yourself out." To Liz's appalling surprise, Patty gobbled the plant then and there, burping afterwards in an adorable way.

Kid then looked up at the blend of sunset color of the sky, some early evening stars twinkling. The moon was rising again, its bloody smile mocking the world beneath in an ironic laughter. He continued, "I think I will just wait until I can remove both rings."

"Hey, I'm gonna say it again: You can fight this…this disorder you have," Liz placed her hands on her hips. "You're doing it right now, standing in this garden we made."

"Yeah! We just planted stuff and let it grow naturally—that's why everything looks weird-shaped," Patty interjected.

"Not the best point," Liz whispered to her sister. "A-anyways, having only one sealing ring will release whatever n-th power of yours its suppressed. At the same time, it'll show your old man that you're responsible and competent to control that new power."

"And, Kid," Patty said softly, "We know that the repressors hurt you if you try to go over their limit. We _are _your Weapons—we see how your abilities are cut down in the moment. We practically felt it."

The young shinigami looked surprised at this. He sighed, looking towards the ground, "I suppose you guys would eventually notice."

"So…?" Liz asked.

Kidd shook his head, black-and-white strands of hair flowing effortless with each turn of his head. "There is another reason why I won't release a ring for the moment," he revealed.

Liz and Patty glanced at each other, and then at their Meister. The nodded at the same time towards him to continue.

"An ancient religion once weighed the heart of a person against a feather," he began. "The heavy heart was damned to be eaten by a beast-god. The equal heart was allowed to move to its afterlife."

"Is the heart supposed to be the soul? And the beast-god a Kishin?" Patty inquired.

"Yeah, probably, but let him finish," Liz warned. Patty saluted. When they finished their two line interruption, Liz nodded again for Kidd to speak.

"What is the weight of a soul? Does a human soul, a witch soul, a _kishin_ soul have different measures?" he asked.

"Um…"

"Rhetorical question, Patty," Kid said, his yellow eyes looking from sister to sister. "The answer is they are all the same. However, what sets them apart from each other are the _traits._"

"Yeah, but…that's kinda obvious," Liz pointed out, tilted her head to the side. What was he getting at? As per usual, his expression was of a bored displeasured nature.

"Now, it is said that every soul is given the potential for both light and dark, good and evil, by the various seeds of emotion implanted within each being. Darkness happens when everything is absorbed—a total blend of colors that reveals black. On the other hand, white come from all light being reflected."

"True, true," Liz nodded in agreement.

"So, the 'heavier' hearts must have been saturated with emotion," he said.

Patty nodded, "So that must mean the lighter hearts had less emotion…? But wait—I'm trying to follow what you're saying, but then that wouldn't explain why how light—I mean—"good " people still have many emotions."

"Exactly," he broke of a thick twig from the bush, brown and arm's length, about the width of a thumb. "All beings need all the emotions to function properly, with each facet in moderation. The heavier soul usually overload on an emotion, creating an imbalance."

Liz watched Kidd for a moment, trying to determine why he was telling them this.

"Granted that within the depths of the soul, there is always a struggle between the various emotions; a sort of ordered chaos. Once that imbalance is introduced, more unstable reactions occur," he broke the twig, revealing its cavity to be dark and rotted, with pale larvae squirming. "It only takes one slight fluctuation in emotion to trigger the discrepancy—to tilt the scale. The result is plunging the soul into true chaos, true madness—true _insanity._"

Liz and Patty stood there watching Kid. Patty had recoiled at the larvae, but Liz was too distracted by her Meister's words and her attempt at making sense of them to be concerned with bugs. Kid, on the other hand, replaced the infested twig onto the bush.

"Liz, Patty," he turned to each of them. "Logic and Madness are also two sides of the same coin. Reality, it seems, demands a little of both."

"Oookay, Kid. I think you need to get some more friends."

"Good one, Liz. He's been home schooled up until now. _We're_ his friends!!"

"Not really helping, Patty," Liz whispered once again. She then looked at the dark sky; officially nighttime. "Let's wrap it up here, Kidd. We'll grab some pizza or something. But still, I'm confused—what did that story have to do with anything?"

Kid shrugged, "I've stated this before: I'm not here to eradicate evil, only to preserve the balance between good and evil."

Patty tilted her head, "Aaanndd?

"Maka and Soul, Black*Star and Tsubaki…they are powerful," he said. "In this team, as I am now, these seals are good enough. Removing one would be overkill."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Seems like you've made a decision already," she said. "Why did you even bother telling us now? You never concerned us with, um, shinigami matters before."

Kid was silent for a moment, looking at the grey ground. His expression was foreign, strange. He placed one of his skull-ringed hand to his chest, clenching the fabric over where the heart would be. "I cannot discard the rings just yet," he eventually said.

Liz looked at Patti again and then back at Kid. It seemed like he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Goodness, was he obsessed with balance even if that balance meant allowing chaos into the picture. She said, "Well, when you're ready…"

"…we'll do our best to support you," Patti finished.

Kid looked at both of them, grateful. They stood there for a moment, Meister and Weapons, peaceful wavelengths of soul resonating between the three.

"A-ah, Kid!" Patty regained her composure. Her eyes became all bubbly and teary, "Why did you put those icky worms back into the bush?"

He replied, "Let's play a game, Patty."

"Okaaayyy!!" she instantly brightened up, coming closer to him in interest.

"Find all the buses in this garden that do not have this bug infection. Then, spread the larvae around the plants. That's all you have to do," he said.

She clapped her hands in delight, rushing off to complete her task. Liz was left staring in sock. "Um, Kidd," she managed to say. "Why are you killing off the plants in the garden?"

"These are sycamore tress—their branches will never _ever _be symmetrical. And the bushes are ugly."

Liz looked at her sister. Despite being a total airhead, Patty wasn't dumb. Sure, she might not get that the bugs she was carrying to all the plants were their death sentence…but later, when there was no vegetation in the grove, she would know her participation off the deed.

"Kidd, I can't let you make her do this. Call off this game," she asked.

Kidd raised an eyebrow at her asking.

"Why are you doing this, again?" Liz rubbed the back of her head.

"For symmetrical beauty," he stated flatly, his face giving his 'Duh' look.

"Ugh! You are impossible!" she threw her hands up in the air. It didn't matter now; once he had the strange symmetrical complex look, his mind was set.

TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL

Read and review, please!


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